So lately I’m not too sure whether to become atheist, catholic, or just not care about either. I’ve been catholic my whole life, but I’ve just lead myself to believe that religion just isn’t adding up, & when I tell myself it’s not real I feel so much more well, better, & carefree. The only thing that is keeping to me to my religion is fear. Like I’ve been researching stuff about judgment day & the rapture, which scares me to death, & some of the signs do add up, but then again I have to ask myself are the signs just coincidences that bible-pushers go to extreme lengths to find evidence for or is it real & should I so to say read my bible more? Honestly, in the end I find myself believing that it’s always coincidence, & the signs are just statements that are either common sense or just something that could mean anything. I don’t want to diss on religion, I just don’t want to live my life in fear. I didn’t bother asking this anywhere else because I’d figure I’d just get a bunch of loony bible-pushers. I just need sensible opinions.
Posted: January 3rd 2011
Eric_PK
Many of us have gone through the same thing that you are experiencing, and the fear will go away over time. Here are a few things you might consider:
1) Spend some time studying comparative religion. Seeing the common motifs in a religion you have never believed in may make it easier. If you look at Ragnarok, you’ll find an end-of-days story – natural disaster, a worldwide flood, and then a repopulation by two surviving humans. Sounds a little familiar to me…
2) Consider heading over to ex-christian.net and reading some of the de-conversion stories there and/or asking your questions there.
Posted: January 8th 2011
Reed Braden www
It sounds like you’re an atheist no matter what label you cling to, or at least an atheist-leaning agnostic. Don’t try to label yourself: Just believe what the evidence you have observed suggests that you believe and save the labeling for a day when it becomes more obvious.
Posted: January 5th 2011
Steve Zara www
You say that the only thing keeping you religious is fear. That should tell you everything you need to know about religion, and help you think more clearly. Religion is centered around emotion, and for so many people it meets an emotional need. Religion isn’t really about truth, because if it was, it would not need so much emotion to support it. And it certainly does need that support, because it isn’t supported by science and reason.
Think on this: religion is based on a belief in supernatural things and supernatural happenings. But what is the supernatural, really? It turns out to be nothing at all. The supernatural is not a thing, but a desire – the desire for something that is beyond the limits of the natural world, a desire for magic. It’s all about emotion. People feel insecure in the world live in. They see things that are out of their control, and they see no justice, and they see death. So, they invent the supernatural, which they wrap around themselves like a security blanket. Within the supernatural are gods that they can pray to, there is survival of death, and there is justice, truth, and morality.
But what evidence is there for the supernatural? None at all. There can’t be, because the supernatural is miraculous, and miracles aren’t the kind of things you can put into a laboratory and test. Science rejects the supernatural not because it can’t handle it, but because the idea of the supernatural and the associated miracles is such a bad one that it should be casually dismissed as delusion.
So, what you are doing is allowing a system of belief that is someone else’s irrational comfort blanket to frighten you. There is no need. There can be no basis for those supernatural beliefs, and the fact that it is emotion holding you to religion and not reason is the very thing that should help you see that religion is false.
Religion isn’t just false, it’s based on ideas that could never be true. We don’t live in a world of miracles; we never have. We have to each make our own judgments each day, and whether or not we feel rapture in our lives is up to us!
Posted: January 5th 2011
SmartLX www
Want to feel better about those doomsday predictions? Look up the failed ones. There are hundreds of them, up to a hundred in the 20th century alone and dozens in the last decade. They all looked like they “added up” too.
You can look at it more generally if you like. Jesus is quoted in three of the Gospels (Matthew 24:34 for one) as saying that “this generation will not pass away” before he returns and the world ends. It’s been reinterpreted out of necessity nowadays, but the earliest Christians really thought theirs would be the last generation of human beings. Christians in every generation since, right up to the present (not all of them, of course, but always some), have thought that theirs would be the last generation.
This happens every generation, despite each generation being aware of one more previous generation where people thought this and were proven wrong. There are always signs for those who want to see them and, as unsatisfying as the idea is, apparent “signs” can be and usually are completely meaningless.
Read the Bible more, sure, but you’ve read it already. Read other stuff too. Read about the future, and read how people all over the world (including the vast majority of Christians) are preparing to be on this planet for a very long time to come, and leave a legacy for those who come long after. Realise that many of those who say the end is nigh are just trying to convert people in an atmosphere of urgency, and those who actually think the end is nigh are the latest (but won’t be the last) in a long line of sorely mistaken people.
Posted: January 5th 2011
Mike the Infidel www
The signs are things which have always happened. (Oh, wait – the Bible knew I would say that! Spooky.) Just remember, there’s no reason to fear the apocalypse of any one religion over that of any other. They have equal evidence – ancient holy books with nonspecific predictions. If you’re not afraid of the Islamic belief of the apocalyptic coming of the Mahdi, you should be equally unconcerned by what Christians think is going to happen. These beliefs are designed to frighten people; it’s a good way to drive in the wedge and set up a conversion.
Besides, just think of all the other religions with apocalyptic predictions that didn’t come true. The only reason you fear the Christian apocalypse is because you were raised Christian. Don’t let your mind be caught up in the shackles of a dogma you no longer believe.
Posted: January 5th 2011